


Boiled Frogs

by sidnihoudini



Category: Jackass (Movies) RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-30
Updated: 2007-01-11
Packaged: 2017-11-26 03:41:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’re shooting. </p><p>It feels like they’re always shooting lately, always shooting and trapped in this watching-each-other stunt that lasts for nine hundred takes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Boiled Frogs

This is how it goes: Johnny watches Bam, watches him real carefully, like if he stares too hard, the kid’ll disappear -- because that’s exactly what he is, sometimes, a real fucking kid, fucking things up for his parents, making more frienemies than friends. Johnny watches Bam like Jeff watches Johnny watching Bam, sick cycle like cigarette addicts and alcoholics, always wanting that one last fix.

They’re shooting. It feels like they’re always shooting lately, always shooting and trapped in this watching-each-other stunt that lasts for nine hundred takes. Jeff gets sick sometimes, watching, gets sick thinking about the things he suspects are going on, gets sick because Johnny’s been real inconspicuous lately, real fucking quiet about the places he goes when Jeff’s stuck working with Preston on one last shot. Bam’s always gone too, Jeff notices, they don’t think he does, but the two of them stick out like broken thumbs.

Jenn got fed up, left Bam nearly a year ago. Jeff knows cause Johnny told him one night, back when he had been shooting Wildboyz deep in a bush located in wherever the fuck. Johnny’d been starring in whatever piece of cinematic “history” they paid him top dollar for -- had been shooting in Pennsylvania, actually, (and was he actually shooting, Jeff thinks now, was he actually shooting or was he just fucking around, was that why Jenn left, had that been the last straw?)

But, he’d been shooting. So they’d talk on the phone every couple of nights, and one night Johnny said something about Bam -- Jeff doesn’t remember how he came up, but he always did in Johnny’s conversations -- said something about Bam and the “new place” and how he’d lit all of Jenn’s things on fire then threw them in the water by the Power Plant. Jeff had laughed, pretended to be amused because it made Johnny happy, sometimes they were happy.

“It’s loud but that’s it, it don’t hurt,” Jeff can hear Johnny saying, talking in that slow-soft drawl that he does. He’s got Bam in a corner, and Dunn isn’t convinced either but he’s wandered outside to smoke. Jeff thinks Bam’s been a fucking girl so far, he’s copped out of three stunts and cried once. Jeff doesn’t remember Bam being like this before.

He pretends to check the schedule that nobody bothers sticking to as he eavesdrops.

“That shit’ll fucking kill you,” Bam’s hissing. One of the safety headsets that the range owners gave everyone are in his hands, he’s twisting one side and pinching the other. Jeff glances over, thinks he sees Johnny’s hand wrapped around the bone of Bam’s hip, but blinks and realizes that his eyes must be playing tricks on him. “Knoxville. Come on.”

 _Knoxville,_ Jeff thinks, flipping the schedule over, so he can scribble nonsense on the back. He can hear Pontius laughing low-like near the back door. _Knoxville, Knoxville, Knoxville._

“We on schedule?” Johnny comes up asking, appearing in front of Jeff real sudden like, with his eyebrows raised, headphones cuffed around his neck. Jeff looks up and raises his eyebrows, Johnny’s mouth is already half curled into a smirk.

He shrugs. “Not really. He in or out?” Jeff asks, nodding in Bam’s direction.

Johnny looks over his shoulder at Bam, leaning against the wall he was cornered against a minute ago, eyes closed. Fucking nervous as shit, and Jeff can’t believe Dunn isn’t around.

“He’s in,” Johnny nods, reaching for his headphones. “So let’s do it now, before he changes his mind.”

Silently agreeing, Jeff goes to get the shooters rolling, but doesn’t get far before Johnny reaches around and hooks an arm around his shoulders, pulling him back, pressing his mouth against the corner of Jeff’s lips.

“This is gonna hurt,” Johnny whispers, looking at him hard. And then he’s walking towards Bam.

.

When the shots are fired, Bam hits the ground first. Jeff’s stomach drops and knots like it always does, like it always has when the water first hits or the firecrackers go off too quick. Knoxville is still standing, Dunn is half up and half down.

But Bam is on the floor.

“Fuck, is he okay?” Jeff hears someone ask. He waves his hand, shushes them, and watches Bam, makes sure that the cameras are still rolling. Bam is curled up, Jeff knows that he’s in pain.

Johnny’s the first one to kneel down, to make sure he’s still conscious.

“Are you crying?” Jeff calls, hears Dimitry behind him, knocking things around.

Tightening up the grip he has on his own wounded torso, Bam turns his face towards the floor.

“Ed,” Johnny calls, looking up, sitting on his haunches. Jeff sees the fear in Johnny’s face that he remembers alongside Butterbean’s profile and crushed golf carts. “I don’t think he’s right.”

Jeff watches the viewfinder on the camera and says, “Keep rolling.”

.

Bam’s hit pretty hard, a handful of pellets in his lower torso. But Jeff’s seen worse.

“Looks bad, dude,” Steve says, shaking his head as he looks down the line of beat-up bodies. Dunn, Bam, Knoxville. Johnny manic-laughs and lets his shirt drop, Bam’s slower but manages to slide his shirt down as well.

Cringing like he has been the whole last half hour, Bam nods and shuffles off, saying, “Hurts bad too.”

Johnny watches him go (because Johnny always watches Bam) and Jeff watches Johnny (because he always watches Johnny watching Bam.) Bam closes the door to the men’s bathroom behind him.

It’s a couple of seconds before Johnny looks away, and then his gaze is on the floor.

Jeff watches Johnny watching the floor.

.

Jeff can’t always be there to watch, can’t be even though he constantly wishes that he could.

“You got hit more than me,” Bam says, already dozing from the pain medicine that Ed was doling out in spaces on set. “And you never fell.”

Johnny shifts his weight on top of Bam, running the pads of his thumbs over the raised, bruised bumps on Bam’s hips. Bam jerks and twitches from the feeling, Johnny grins from the reaction and bends down until he’s just hovering.

“I’m used to it.”

Groaning, Bam rubs his hands over his face and closes his eyes, tries to relax into the mattress he hasn’t bothered moving off of since they got back to the hotel.

“Feels like my skin is fuckin’ on fire,” He whispers, voice cracking.

Johnny leans down further and mouths the curve of Bam’s chest, tracing a slow pattern between the raised red welts.

“S’long as it don’t get infected, it’ll be fine,” He murmurs, looking at Bam’s skin so close that the black inked tattoo look just like flesh mixed with watered down paint. Bam presses the heels of his hands against the hollows in his eyes and groans, laughs like it aches when Johnny sits back on his haunches and says, “Not like the fuckin’ dick farm on your ass… that shit is disgusting.”

Bam shakes his head and grumbles, “Fuck you.”

“Fuck _you,_ dear,” Johnny grins, and he’s hovering again. Bam opens his eyes and manages a sore sounding laugh.

.

The first time Jeff fucked Knoxville was a good year before they filmed the original self defense segment, and it had happened “accidentally,” in the back porch of the house Johnny had then been renting with a couple of friends… Jeff has since forgotten the semantics.

But there are things that Jeff doesn’t know -- a real lot of things Jeff doesn’t know. The first time Johnny fucked Bam was when they were in the middle of shooting the first season for MTV, a wicked quickie in the kitchen of April’s house, while Jeff was outside with Dico and Dunn. That was back when he hadn’t suspected a goddamned thing.

“Jesus Christ,” Johnny had gasped into the middle of Bam’s shoulder blades, pushing him hard into the metal knobs on the cabinets beneath the sink. It’d been winter and Bam had been wearing this scarf that kept getting into his mouth, and he hadn’t really been able to breathe too well with it around his neck, no matter without. He’d braced himself against the counter with both hands and he’d pushed back onto Johnny’s dick, moaning hard, almost satisfied.

But they were never satisfied, not Bam and not Johnny. Nothing had been enough.

.

“Hey, I’m real sorry about that,” Jeff catches Johnny apologizing, Johnny with that half smirk that reads he probably isn’t really that sorry at all.

Bam’s in a corner of the hotel room the production staff are sharing, looking up with eyes that are still terrified, and Jeff feels that pang deep in his gut for a moment, the one that tells him maybe he went too far with the snake, with the locked gate. But then he sees that softness in Johnny’s face that he rarely ever does, and that feeling goes away real damned quick.

“Jeff!” Spike is suddenly shouting from the doorway, and he’s testing out the middle half of his old lady disguise, so he’s standing there in khaki pants and glasses, with two plastic titties hanging down to his belly button. Jeff raises his eyebrows. “Steve’s on his way to emergency, he landed hard on the stairs and passed out bad. Where are the medical release forms?”

Extending the arm that’s holding the clipboard full of assorted paperwork, Jeff looks tired as he says, “Right here.”

.

Jeff catches them, almost five months later. At the after party for the premiere of Number Two. He can’t believe it took so long.

They’re on the balcony of the party hotel room, and last time Jeff looked they were just smoking, but by the time he makes it out the sliding glass door, Johnny’s got Bam up against the metal railing, the cigarette in his fingers balanced and burning beside Bam’s ear. His mouth is open and there’s just no mistaking, it’s sucking hard on the stubble covered skin just underneath the line of Bam’s jaw.

Bam’s hand is on Johnny’s back, and Jeff knows that it is. He sees it, now.

He stands there, watching, with one of his hands on the door pull like he’s a complete retard, his other hand extended because he was walking with a bit of a pace and his hand is still going at that clip. Bam laughs, all of a sudden, and Jeff almost doesn’t hear it because it’s said low, but he mentions something about feeling like he’s going to fall backwards off of the balcony and into traffic head first. It isn’t until Johnny answers back, saying nah, he wouldn’t let that happen, that Jeff makes any kind of movement.

By the time the beer bong has been passed around and the expensive cheese platter is puked over by Steve, Jeff has decided that it’s the end, the real fucking end this time. For the movie, because he won’t be a part of number three, if there is one; and for his relationship, because he won’t be the third addition and last man standing in it.

He slips out of the party, mostly unnoticed except for Ape, who offers him a little sandwich corner because she says he looks hungry. He declines, of course, even though they’re home made and he knows April’s a real good cook. He half smiles at Pontius because he’s blocking Jeff’s last escape door, searches for his car keys inside his jacket pocket as he walks down the hotel corridor, and in one little real quick flash, remembers each and every moment when he just wasn’t _sure._


	2. Rough Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He wonders if _this_ was how Bam felt all those times he fucked Knoxville on-set, hidden in an unfinished corner in the basement of April’s house. 
> 
> This certain tightness in his gut that Jeff feels proud to own, the _you think you have him, but you have no fucking idea._
> 
> He wonders if Bam wonders, now, if Bam wonders where Johnny’s going and what he’s doing when he’s gone.

_“This is gonna hurt,” Johnny whispers, looking at him hard. And then he’s walking towards Bam._

.

“Are you back with him?” Bam asks one night, when Johnny is defenseless and lying naked in his bed.

Surprised look on his face, Johnny stares at Bam in the dark of the bedroom. He can’t make out a whole lot of his features, but Johnny can see enough.

“No?” He answers, but he asks it like a question. He feels his gut twist, pinch.

Bam doesn’t look much convinced, either.

.

Because that isn’t the truth, isn’t the truth at all.

It was good for a while, he and Bam. Things were decent. Johnny hadn’t seen Jeff since he went back to the Dickhouse production office to pick up some of his things. When he’d got there, Jeff had already left – Kosick had been around, though. Had been quiet, appropriately, because he’d always been closer buddies with Jeff than Johnny, and Knoxville figured he was only picking sides. 

He didn’t see Jeff again until he bumped into him in, oddly enough, a carwash. Johnny had run into the service station for a pack of smokes, Jeff had been removing the two dozen eggs that Steve puked up and onto the hood of the car after another idiot challenge.

For one reason or another, they’d ended up fucking in the outdoor restroom. Jeff had been the one to make the walk of shame to the cashier in the service station to ask for the keys before they could go in.

It had been angry sex. Make-up sex, but in a more hostile way. Johnny had left with bruises on his shins from bumping up against the yellowed sink and overstuffed garbage can.

Bam had been in Finland, shooting something for fucking, HIM. 

Trepidation set in on the car ride home from the station. Johnny smoked his entire pack of cigarettes, and checked his fly three or four times just to make sure it was still done up.

But Bam wasn’t home when he got there, wasn’t home to smell the sex still in his mouth and all over his body. Wasn’t home to notice that Johnny’s shirt was on backwards, wasn’t home to recognize the utter guilt creeping in across Johnny’s face.

Because he was. Guilty. 

Bam came back a week and a half later, and Johnny fucked him hard over the gothic style dining table MTV used for _Viva La Bam_ , and then once more on the skate ramp in the back yard. Dunn almost caught them both times.

The guilt went away, slightly. He fucked it away hard, until all he could think about was _fuck_ and _this is good_ and _goddamn, Bam, you feel…_ The guilt went away until Jeff turned up at the front gate of Johnny’s house, ringing the doorbell and fucking ducking just in case he got punched.

Johnny hadn’t been there to react. Bam answered the intercom instead, felt his gut drop low when he heard Jeff’s voice crackling over the system. He’d ignored him, let his finger drop off the call button and had Jeff figure nobody was there for him to talk to. He hadn’t told Johnny about it, couldn’t figure out how to say it without letting something slip that he was unprepared to.

They were all so unprepared.

.

Bam’s watching Montel. The sheets are low on his hips and he’s got a beer in one hand and a second waiting for him on the nightstand. The topic is ‘ _Toxic Relationships – Once a cheater, always a cheater,’_ and Montel is on the studio floor, reenacting some chick’s melodramatic break-up with her boyfriend.

He’s uncomfortable, but he’s also half drunk, so when Johnny comes home wearing a different shirt than the one he left in, it won’t hurt so bad. Won’t cause that ache that he can’t imagine Jeff lived with for all those years and years.

Because – is this what he had dealt with, all those times Johnny’d been fucking Bam in a locked production office or hotel bathroom? The ache, the guilt, even though he hadn’t _done_ anything? Had Jeff turned into an alcoholic, like Bam was sure he was eventually going to?

Johnny comes home with a Dickhouse t-shirt on inside out to hide the logo, but Bam knows he left in a red Element one.

He’s not as fucking stupid as he looks, sometimes.

“Shit, you still up?” Johnny asks, ducking into the bathroom real quick, so he can peel his shirt off and stuff it in the trash. He couldn’t find his at the hotel, had been in a wicked rush to leave before they ended up paying for the third hour – Jeff had leant him his, and had just worn his coat home. “It’s late.”

Bam reaches for the other beer, and drops the empty on the floor. “I know.”

“What’s this?”

Johnny comes out of the bathroom in a pair of blue Dickies that sit real low on his hips, and a finger itching behind his ear. Nervous habit, that and laughing like a maniac.

“Montel.”

Starting to unbuckle his belt, Johnny nods and turns to go back into the bathroom.

“Oh. Anyone call while I was gone?”

Bam cracks his beer open, he’s sure he looks miserable by now.

“No.”

.

Okay, Jeff feels fucking…Well, he feels fucking _smug_. Wicked fucking smug, could sit there smirking at himself all day in the mirror and just feel so fucking _good_ about himself for no reason other than the one he’s fucking.

He wonders if _this_ was how Bam felt all those times he fucked Knoxville on-set, hidden in an unfinished corner in the basement of April’s house. This certain tightness in his gut that Jeff feels proud to own, the _you think you have him, but you have no fucking idea._ He wonders if Bam wonders, now, if Bam wonders where Johnny’s going and what he’s doing when he’s gone.

Jeff wonders if Johnny has fucked up yet, if he’s slipped and let something show. Jeff bets Johnny has, because god knows how many times he did when he was living with Jeff and screwing Bam on the side.

 _Little fucking kid,_ Jeff wants to tell him, and in his head when he talks to Bam, he’s four feet taller and twice as thick. _Little fucking kid, you have no goddamned idea._

Because that’s all Bam is: a lost little boy, disguised in fucking velvet smoking jackets and black tattooed designs.

For a minute, Jeff almost feels bad. 

But then he remembers before.

.  
“Don’t fucking lie to me, Knoxville!” Bam explodes one day, and Jeff never did this, Jeff was never so aggressive, Jeff never let his agony show. 

Johnny’s in the kitchen trying to pick out a type of cereal when it happens, when Bam storms in with all of the evidence he’s gathered inside of his head. He’s found the t-shirt. His father may be submissive, but he is not.

“What are you going on about…” Johnny starts to ask, and his voice is strong when he starts, but by the time he turns around with the box of Corn Pops in his hand, that’s when he sees the shirt in Bam’s grip, that’s when he knows.

Bam was never Jeff, and maybe that’s why Johnny left in the first place.

“You better explain real fuckin’ quick,” Bam’s saying, and he’s starting to yell, starting to twist up tight inside like a string of fire crackers gone loose.

Johnny leans back against the counter, and feels his conscious detonate. 

“I don’t – look, you, it’s…” He doesn’t know how to cover this one up, and what’s worse is that Bam knows it. He fucking sees Johnny’s face, watches his features change when he throws the shirt across the room hard, and Johnny never thought that fabric could hurt, but it does when it whips across his bare chest.

He catches it with his free hand, and the top of his thigh.

Bam is raging.

“You motherfucker,” Bam screams, because now he knows for sure.

Now he fucking knows it, and what’s worse: he feels it.

.

The break-up with Jeff was never so… lethal. It had been quiet, could have been two business associates going in different directions with a clear contract set between them, of who gets what and why.

But with Bam…

With Bam it’s scathing. And they fuck again, Johnny doesn’t know how or why it happens, but suddenly he’s up against the hallway wall and Bam is shoving at him, grabbing and pulling like he isn’t sure whether he wants to grip and hold on forever or push Knoxville’s body away hard and never come back.

Jeff seems to disappear. Bam’s surprised that he doesn’t stand on the sidelines with a little team P.J. flag, waving it back and forth with a dumb smile on his face.

In the car with all of his shit in the backseat, Johnny drives until he hits the interstate, and thinks about never going back again.


	3. Mailbox Arson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I don’t fucking get it,” Dunn mutters, watching the ceiling with one eye.
> 
> DiCo is laying across the floor beside the couch, mostly interested in the old school Gameboy in his hands: it’s gray, takes four double A batteries, and weighs a fucking ton. It reminds Brandon of backyards and hallways, mildewed basements and old sleeping cots in-between furnaces and video cameras.
> 
> “What’s that,” Brandon asks the green tinted game screen. He sounds distracted.

_Bam cracks his beer open, he’s sure he looks miserable by now._

. 

Johnny finds out Bam is fucking some Austrian pop star in the middle of June. Dunn’s the one who lets it slip, Johnny kept in touch after a brief battle with his head and his heart: something in-between won out.

“Is he good?” Knoxville asks, sitting across from Dunn, at a too small table that has their knees knocking together underneath it. Dunn doesn’t answer, not right away at least. But Johnny’s already drunk, and his patience has been gone for a while now. “Dunn,” He grits, knuckles white around his glass of scotch. “Is he _good._ ”

Dunn’s torn, and doesn’t know whether to look left or right as he cops out and finally manages, “I don’t know,” instead of the truth, and this is it: ‘He’s better than you ever were.’

“Dunn,” One word and all of a sudden Johnny’s halfway across the table, breath hot, smelling strong like sea salt on Ryan’s face. Then Johnny’s got his fist knotted up in the front of Dunn’s threadbare t-shirt, grabs it, pulls. Between them the table shifts, knocking around on uneven legs, centered candle and drinks wobbling unsteadily. “Don’t fucking lie to me.” 

Yanking himself clear out of Johnny’s grip, Dunn takes a step back, bumps into the person passed out at the table behind him. His eyes are wide, and all of a sudden he’s weary of the monster that they all helped create.

“Don’t you fucking touch me, dude,” He hisses, wants to keep it cool because they’re already making a scene, but he doesn’t want to take part in another movie. “I’m not the one who fucked it all up.”

Staring hard, Johnny watches Ryan straighten out his jacket and make his way from the bar. It might be the smoke that’s making his eyes water.

But it also might not.

.

“I fucked up pretty big time,” Dunn confesses, looking mostly remorseful.

Bam’s insides bump together. He asks, “What the fuck did you do?”

Half bent over the stone top kitchen counter, Ryan studies the curve of the side of his hand. It’s still a bit swollen from last week when he caught it in the garage door.

“I saw Knoxville a couple nights ago,” He finally admits, talking too slow for Bam’s liking: he wants to hear it all, now.

Bam’s eyes are red lined and pink inside from too many nights of editing, and as soon as Ryan looks up and sees this, he wants to move his line of sight back down. Would rather stare at his hands for eternity than to continue in dropping this bombshell grenade on his best friend’s back.

“And?” Bam finally squawks, slapping the palms of his hands onto the counter in front of Ryan’s nose, catching his attention like a dog’s. “What the fuck happened? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Ryan looks so sorry, Bam almost regrets what he’s about to do --

“I told him about Vid.” Dunn talks faster when he sees Bam raise his fist. “I’m fucking sorry, okay!”

\-- almost.

.

It would be easy to go back to Jeff, things could be good. They’d be simple like khaki, and Johnny could work consistently again. Fuck, if he wanted to, he could make movies himself. He’s sure he could write a script better than the pieces of shit that his agent sends him, and he knows that if they were together, if they were together, Jeff would produce them.

They could live underneath that goddamn Dickhouse rainbow, and Johnny’d never have to think about anything else again.

With Bam he would worry. With Bam things could be ( _would_ be) brutal, fucking… ruthless. A constant fist fight in the middle of a crowded store. But somehow, somehow just that explosive feeling alone wins out over what he used to have with Jeff. A safety net as opposed to an open flame and a can of aerosol. 

Somehow it happens every time.

.

“I don’t fucking get it,” Dunn mutters, watching the ceiling with one eye.

DiCo is laying across the floor beside the couch, mostly interested in the old school Gameboy in his hands: it’s gray, takes four double A batteries, and weighs a fucking ton. It reminds Brandon of backyards and hallways, mildewed basements and old sleeping cots in-between furnaces and video cameras.

“What’s that,” Brandon asks the green tinted game screen. He sounds distracted.

Ryan touches his nose, it’s hot and fucking sore to touch. His cheekbone feels just the same.

“Bam and fucking, fucking Knoxville,” Dunn grumbles, sounding nasally. He figures it’s just the blood clot up past his nostril that makes it feel as though his head is pumped full of snot.

The one name alone garners enough of Brandon’s attention. He hits pause, something beeps loud.

“What the fuck happened now?” He sounds amused as he sets the little time portal against his chest.

Dunn sighs all dramatic and fuck, he doesn’t even know. The only part of the story he owns, is, “I told Johnny about Vid –“

“When the fuck did you talk to that rat bastard?” Brandon asks, interrupting, and even though he still sounds at least partly amused, it’s turning fast into resentment. 

Ryan tips his head back so he can look DiCo in the face.

“Does it really fucking matter?”

DiCo gapes, forgets about the game sitting on his chest and sits up. It slides off and lands hard against the floor, clatters and skids across the wood and wax finish until it hits the leg of the coffee table.

“Yes!” He snorts. “It kinda does!”

Looking back at the ceiling, Dunn grumbles, “What the fuck ever. It doesn’t.”

“Did you tell Bam that Knoxville knows?” DiCo asks, reaching out for his system.

Laughing despite himself, Ryan thinks of broken sinuses and cheek bones.

.

Vid is fucking great. He’s dark and eloquent and clever, and Bam wants to fuck him whenever he gets a chance. He does fuck him whenever he gets the chance. Vid is built strong and wears black and purple, Vid’s a fucking superstar – Bam always figured he’d be the one to end up a starfucker if he hadn’t become a star.

He starts to skate hard. As soon as Dunn told him what the fucker had done, Bam’d run the hell outside and threw his board hard against the ground. _Motherfucker,_ He’d thought to himself, over and over, stomping like a little child on the wide area of half dead grass, _motherfucker. Motherfucker. Motherfucker._

The sun soaks hot into his back, Bam feels his t-shirt stick to his skin the more he moves, the further he pushes, the deeper he goes.

Fuck Knoxville. Fuck him.

He skates hard.

.

“Where’s he gone, anyway?” DiCo asks into a fifteen minute long doorway of silence that had Dunn beginning to nod off. 

Ryan’s still doing a half-assed job of feeling up his nose. “Fuck if I know.”

“He’s an idiot if he goes back to that asshole,” Brandon comments, eyes focused on the game he’s still clutching like a lifeline. Frogger. Fucking classic.

Dunn’s quiet for a half second.

“Knoxville fucked up once,” He finally manages, and now he’s watching the wall instead of the ceiling. Watching the clock ticking, watching the hands move. “I mean, fuck, we’ve all… everyone’s fucked up like that before.”

Brandon snorts and rolls his eyes, says, “You’re not fucking serious, you actually believe he only fucked Tremaine _once_?”

“Yeah.” Dunn swings his legs over the side of the couch and sits up. “Knoxville’s fucking torn up about it, just about punched me in the damn eye.”

Smirking with half his mouth, DiCo looks up at the welt growing on Ryan’s cheekbone.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dunn grumbles, realizing as he pushes himself off of the couch.

The sound of Brandon laughing follows him out of the room.

.

Bam thinks about it, thinks about it real fucking hard. Thinks so fucking much he just almost cracks right down the middle. And he starts to splinter, break in a few places, but he isn’t full gone yet, and maybe that’s what brings him here.

There is no “accidental” meeting between he and Jeff. It isn’t some twist of fate that has them running into each other’s shopping carts at Whole Foods. Bam pulls into the parking lot of the Dickhouse production office, and kills the engine.

Then, the dramatics:

“Where the fuck is he?” Bam announces, walking into the office with his arms swung out, dressed down in black and fucking crushed velvet. He saw Jeff’s shitty car in the parking lot, Bam’s known he was here since the first floor.

Jeff glances up from the screen of his laptop, startled, with Times New Roman reflected in his eyes. 

He isn’t dumb, either. He knows exactly what’s going on.

“Don’t try to fucking ignore me, because we both know that doesn’t work.” Bam raises his eyebrows and tries to look haughty. “Knoxville. Where’s he at, I know you know.”

Shaking his head, Jeff tries to focus on his computer monitor. Somehow Microsoft has changed their interface to a differently language completely, because he can’t comprehend a fucking word.

“Dunno why you’d think that,” Jeff manages, trying to stay cool. “Because I haven’t seen him… in a while.”

Suddenly Bam is full across the room, and standing in front of Jeff’s desk.

“Liar,” He says, to the top of Jeff’s head. He’s already balding. It makes Bam feel smug.

Jeff squints his eyes at the computer monitor, and says, “Not this time.”

The whole time Bam stands there, Jeff barely glances up.

.

See, this could be easy, this could be so easy. Dunn’s got some wicked secret information locked away in the back of his brain, information that Bam would kill for. Information Bam wants to knock out of that damn head with whatever he has on hand.

“Just tell me the fucking hotel he’s at,” Bam argues, over beers and black eyes while they’re standing in the kitchen, waiting for the pizza guy to show up. A minor peace offering between a fuck up and a short fuse. “I don’t give a shit about room number.”

Dunn shakes his head, holding his beer with one hand and the counter with the other.

“Fuck no.”

Because he sees too much, sometimes. Sees this things in that kid’s eyes, even though he isn’t really a kid anymore. Idol worship, Bam was always the best at that. Dunn sees fucking, tinted sunglasses and basketball style shoes in the back of Bam’s head. They rattle around like old memories.

“What the fuck about Vid?” Dunn asks, five minutes before the doorbell rings, when Bam is thinking hard, trying to figure out how to corkscrew that information right out of Ryan’s head.

Bam quickly thinks of Austria and tours and loud music.

“I’m not going to fuck him, Dunn,” He says into the neck of his beer bottle. They both know he’s lying, but he presses on anyways. “I just want to finish everything off.”

Two and a half minutes until the doorbell.

“Yeah,” Dunn murmurs, looking into the depths of his beer bottle. “You’ve been in the same jerk off session with him for years. Isn’t it time to come yet?”

But by the time he looks up, Bam’s already headed towards the front door. Dunn figures that, like most of the time, Bam hasn’t actually heard a single fucking word he said.


	4. Keep It On Wax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bam’s back through the door and relentlessly desperate with his fingers already knotted in Johnny’s hair.
> 
> “I thought you weren’t…” Johnny manages, he’s got a grip on Bam’s face that keeps them far enough away to talk. 
> 
> Shaking his head, Bam jerks Johnny’s hand backwards, and pulls his head forward with the grip he’s still got with tangled fingers.
> 
> “Tell me not to,” Bam whispers, and he means it because Johnny can see it in his eyes, but Johnny’s got other intentions. Something inside of Bam diffuses, then, and he feels a wave of guilt sweep through his lungs. He grabs Johnny’s ear real tight and snaps, “So tell me fucking not to!”

_“Yeah,” Dunn murmurs, looking into the depths of his beer bottle. “You’ve been in the same jerk off session with him for years. Isn’t it time to come yet?”_

.

Once Bam gets Dunn real good and drunk, it isn’t that hard to get an address for the Starlight Motel out of him.

“Fuck, stop fucking… poking me,” Dunn groans, trying to get away from Bam by curling into the armrest of the couch. Bam’s tipsy, he admits, but he isn’t completely gone yet, so he continues to jab the tips of his fingers into Ryan’s sides and the middle of his spine, just trying to find that one spot where…

Bam squeals with laughter when he hits the softest spot that lands between Ryan’s neck and shoulder.

“Just tell me where he is.” Bam half rolls on top of Dunn and uses his body weight to pin him down, poke the same spot, and twist. Underneath Dunn’s skin, Bam feels muscle shifting over bone, then hears the snort-shuffle of drunken snoring. “Dunn! Fucks sake! Wake up!”

.

Johnny’s half out of the shower when someone starts pounding on the outside of his motel room door. 

“Motherfucker,” He sighs, wrapping the mostly threadbare towel around the angle of his hips. He’s still soaking wet from the stomach up, and feels the cold air of the un-insulated room pinch at his skin.

He gets to the door just as his visitor begins to pound the curve of their fist against the already rotten wood.

“Hold the fuck on,” Johnny calls, irritated. He unlocks the half assed dead bolt above the door knob with one hand, while the other manages to keep hold of his towel to make sure it doesn’t fall off. Whoever’s on the other side is in a real hurry to get in quick, because as soon as they hear the dead bolt unlock, they twist the door knob and shove the door open themselves.

Johnny takes a step back out of instinct as Bam forces his way into the shitty room.

Rainwater floods onto the floor. Bam’s dripping wet, hair stuck to his forehead, clothing soggy and matted -- he looks a goddamned mess. 

Johnny tells him so.

“Yeah, well,” Bam grumbles, kicking the door closed with one foot. He still hasn’t looked Johnny in the face, and it makes Knoxville hold onto his towel a little tighter, self conscious. He hasn’t been working out too much lately. Bam glances over and raises his eyebrows. “Not like I couldn’t say the same ‘bout you.”

He folds one arm over his bare chest.

“What…” Johnny trails off, his stomach feels like a sinking ship.

Bam’s trying to pull his jacket off, but it’s stuck to the shirt underneath. Johnny gets little glimpses of white skin and belly, moves the hand from his chest to just underneath the hip line of his towel. He feels like someone’s going to jump out from under the bed and sack him in the nuts.

“What am I doing here?” Bam asks, guessing, as he glances up at Johnny again, damp hair falling into his eyes. Johnny nods and feels his heart thump. “What the fuck are _you_ doing here?”

Shrugging his shoulders, Johnny gestures to his mostly empty and mildew ridden surroundings. “Trying to get by, I guess.”

“Trying to get by,” Bam laughs, nodding, triumphant as he finally wiggles out of his jacket and throws it against the door. It slides down, and half hangs on the door knob before finally falling to the floor in a squelching mess. “Fucks sake.”

The muscles in Johnny’s shoulders tighten up until they’re a knotted bunch and hanging just below the lobes of his ears. He gathers more of the towel in his hand, and hopes it isn’t threadbare enough to be see through.

“You want anything to dry off with? I can give you a clean shirt…”

He says ‘can’ like ‘caiyn,’ this time, and Bam notices.

“No.” He stands up straight and eyes Johnny’s face. “Where did you go?”

Awkward still, Johnny raises his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Because I want to fucking know,” Bam snaps. “Where did you go to hide?”

Not answering right away, Johnny scratches at the back of his head with one hand, and turns to make his way back to the bathroom. He doesn’t want to drip all over the green carpeted floor. Bam follows him even though it’s at a slower pace, but waits in the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest.

“I was back in Tennessee for a little bit,” Johnny’s talking to himself in the mirror that hangs over the sink. He pulls the same t-shirt he was wearing before his shower back over top his head, his face pops out the hole quick. “Went to L.A. to clear some things up…”

Bam narrows his eyes. “What kinda things?”

“Loose ends,” Johnny says, vaguely. He keeps the towel around his waist, and bends down to pick up a pair of dark blue Dickies. They’re wrinkled and damp from shower water. “Production stuff… I didn’t figure I’d see you around here.”

Johnny leans half on the counter so he can pull his pants on, still keeping the towel loose around his waist, like he’s got any shred of dignity left in front of Bam.

“Stranger things have happened,” Bam tells him, and walks out of frame.

Zipping up the front of his pants, Johnny watches the empty space in the doorway where Bam was standing, listens to the sound of Bam making himself comfortable on the floral patterned couch in the adjoining room.

Johnny glances at himself in the mirror, soggy hair, soggy heart, and follows.

.

Dunn wakes up with his cheek stuck to the floor of Bam’s living room. There’s a slice of pizza about a foot away, and the smell is already making him nauseous. 

Rolling onto his back, he exhales hard and tries to focus on the ceiling.

He can’t believe it’s morning already.

.

Johnny wakes up with a stiff neck and sore back, still half bent over and sitting in the chair he suspects he fell asleep in. Blinking his eyes open, he stretches his legs out in front of him, and squints out the same window he felt like jumping out of last night.

(“I’m with someone now,” Bam had told him, all serious voiced, still looking like a wet gutter rat. “And it’s for real this time. No fuck ups.”

Johnny’d nodded and felt something split him somewhere inside. 

“I understand,” He’d said.

But he didn’t.

“I figured you should know,” Bam had nodded, sitting back against the headboard of the bed, like he was doing Johnny a favor by telling him.

Johnny nodded again, and said, “I appreciate it.”

He didn’t.)

The crick in his neck stiffens when he tries to look over at the bed, where Bam fell asleep stretched across the middle. His pants are low and his shirt’s ridden up, and Johnny feels days of filming on the water and in the sun come rushing back to him, he don’t care how much it makes him sound like some kind of dicksucker. 

“Hey, Bam,” He calls, rocking forward in the chair, preparing to stand up. Bam doesn’t even stir. Johnny reaches forward, and grabs his foot. “Bam.”

Bam wakes up quick, then, with wide eyes and stiff bones. He sits up fast, like he isn’t affected by the lack of sleep, and Johnny used to be like that.

“You fell asleep,” Johnny says, feels like he should point out the obvious.

Something flashes in Bam’s eyes, like maybe he forgot, like maybe he wasn’t really asleep, like maybe all this time he was really just laying there pretending. Johnny wishes he had the heart to do that, had the heart to maybe even carry through.

“Fuck.” Bam struggles to sit up. The wet clothing and lack of heat has frozen his bones, he tries to cure this by rubbing his face with one clammy palm. He blinks a few times to clear the sleep from his eyes, and looks over at Johnny. “What time is it?”

Johnny looks across the room, to the digital clock above the oven. He has to squint just to make the numbers out, and this must be what growing old feels like.

“Nine-ten,” He answers.

Nodding, Bam rolls off the bed, then pushes himself up off of the floor with his knees.

“I need to go,” He says, mostly to himself, voice scratchy sounding, throat thick with sleep. “Fuck. I can’t believe I fell asleep.”

Johnny stays in the chair as Bam pulls his jacket back on. It’s still as wet as it was the night before -- Bam left it in a pile on the cold floor, where it had no place to dry. Johnny feels like he can relate to that poor jacket. But, Johnny stays regardless. Johnny stays and Johnny watches and Johnny is a good boy because he doesn’t know what else to do.

He doesn’t know what else to do.

“Bam,” Johnny calls across the room, when Bam’s hand is on the door knob, and he’s just about ready to leave. 

Bam looks across the room.

“What’s his name?”

Silence passes through them like electric waves, Bam seems to freeze in front of that spot where he came tumbling back into Johnny’s everyday. They watch each other carefully, and Johnny doesn’t think of Jeff once. Not once.

“Doesn’t matter,” Bam finally says, shrugging, shaking his head.

But to Johnny, it does.

When Bam closes the door, Johnny can’t help it. He feels his heart sink deep in his chest.

.

But this is what Johnny can’t know, because if he did, things would be a whole lot different. If he knew, maybe then _everything_ would change.

Bam leans back against the front of Johnny’s motel room door with eyes that aren’t wet with just rain water. He feels the brass room numbers indenting the skin that covers his shoulders and thinks of how it was never supposed to be like this, how maybe Dunn was mostly probably right. Bam realizes this, all of this, as he stands there like a little fucking pussy, watching the edge of the metal railing that runs along the whole floor. He glances down at the roof of his car.

He’s surprised it hasn’t been stolen.

“Fuck it,” Bam whispers to himself, keeping the sound underneath his breath, because he feels like he’s back in Louisiana, trapped in that goddamned cage with no way out. He shakes his head: his mind doesn’t clear, not for a fucking second. He blinks his eyes: his vision stays the same, doesn’t get better but doesn’t get worse. He thinks of Vid: Vid’s face turns, changes, until he looks like Johnny, just like Johnny, except this version wears tight black pants and thick army suit jackets just for show.

Gritting his teeth and listening to the sound, he runs the palm of his hand over the surface of the door behind him, until his fingers hit the too loose knob, and wrap around the shape. He inhales sharp like he’s been hurt, and turns around.

.

On the other side of the door, Johnny hops out of his chair quick, though he can’t hear or see the door knob turning. All that matters is, three strides and he’s halfway across the room – six, and he’s there.

.

Dunn rolls over again, and manages to seek some variation of solace in the darkness under the couch. His body doesn’t entirely fit, but his head does, so he wedges his shoulders underneath and closes his eyes. The hangover is bad, but he’s handled worse.

.

Bam’s back through the door and relentlessly desperate with his fingers already knotted in Johnny’s hair.

“I thought you weren’t…” Johnny manages, he’s got a grip on Bam’s face that keeps them far enough away to talk. 

Shaking his head, Bam jerks Johnny’s hand backwards, and pulls his head forward with the grip he’s still got with tangled fingers.

“Tell me not to,” Bam whispers, and he means it because Johnny can see it in his eyes, but Johnny’s got other intentions. Something inside of Bam diffuses, then, and he feels a wave of guilt sweep through his lungs. He grabs Johnny’s ear real tight and snaps, “So tell me fucking not to!”

There’s a half struggle between them. It pinches when Bam tightens his grip in Johnny’s hair, and Bam’s skin burns when Johnny pulls him back with fingers splayed on the side of his neck.

“I can’t,” Johnny finally breathes, gripping the back of Bam’s head tight, resilient. 

.

Dunn knows as soon as he sees him. Knows by the un-tucked shirt, knows because yesterday Bam left with pants that didn’t have come stains down the front zipper.

“Don’t fucking tell me,” Ryan says, sounding tired. Bam closes the front door behind him, and tries to angle his hips away just enough. Maybe he won’t notice, he thinks, trying to shuffle past Dunn’s side.

Bam snorts because he doesn’t have an excuse ready, and shakes his head.

“You’re a complete asshole to him.” Ryan doesn’t have to say the name as Bam starts up the flight of stairs, they both know who he’s talking about. “You’re fucking Knoxville over,” Ryan calls, watching Bam descend. “And if you’re actually going to put yourself through more of this shit, you’re a bigger idiot than I —“

Locking the bedroom door behind him, Bam pinches the bridge of his nose, and screws his eyes closed so tight that he sees little yellow and orange colored stars.

Nothing was ever supposed to be like this.


	5. This Could Be Anywhere in the World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What the fuck?” Bam asks, as way of greeting. Knoxville looks up like he’s surprised, and grins with a finger scratching the back of his ear.
> 
> The sunglasses come off, and are folded into the V of his t-shirt.
> 
> “You really that surprised?” Johnny asks, cocking his head to the side.
> 
> Bam’s quiet for a half second, standing there with his pants sitting so low on his hips that they’re damned near falling off. Then he shakes his head.
> 
> “Not really,” He shrugs, letting Knoxville inside.

_“I’m with someone now,” Bam had told him, all serious voiced, still looking like a wet gutter rat. “And it’s for real this time. No fuck ups.”_

.

Bam finally cracks in the middle of a fucking, McDonalds drive-thru.

“Goddamn, Dunn! Would you get off my ass?” He snaps, in-between his order of a large fry and double cheeseburger. Dunn’s in the passenger seat with the cup holder already pulled out in the console, looking petulant. He’s been fucking _petulant_ for days now, ever since Bam came back. 

The thirteen year old in the McDonalds speaker is silent, except for the crackle and pop of her microphone. Bam and Dunn stare at each other hard, and they don’t say it out loud, but the space between them grits out something that ends up sounding like _fucking try me, you asshole._

“Umm,” The teenage girl is nervous and tapping on her headset. “Sorry, can I get that last item again?”

Bam, teeth tightened in the back, turns to his opened window.

“A fucking supersize Coke, please,” He orders.

Dunn doesn’t say much, but accepts the drink tray when it’s handed over to him.

Later, when they’ve parked in the far side of the lot and Ryan is swearing under his breath at the sweet and sour sauce spilled down the front of his shirt, Bam will hold the steering wheel with both hands and watch the potted plants lining the front of the parking space.

“We didn’t fuck,” He’ll say, carefully, the processed potato and grease in his stomach churning.

Dunn will glance up from his napkin and not believe a word.

.

Bam is in the middle of a long distance phone call with Vid when Knoxville turns up on the front step of his house.

“Fuck,” He grumbles into the phone, rolling out of bed. Dunn hasn’t been around for the last couple days, Bam doesn’t know why. It might be the Knoxville thing, but it probably isn’t. Vid’s laughing on the other end of the line, and it sounds like static. “Hold up, lemme grab the door.”

Vid’s laughing still as he says, “Sure. Just call me back later.”

“Alright,” Bam’s holding his pants up one handed as he jogs down the stairs. He can see a shadow in the front window pane of the door, but isn’t close enough to classify. Vid says his goodbyes and so does Bam.

It’s not a big surprise to find Johnny standing on the front stoop, head ducked low, hands wedged in his pockets. Anti-incognito in his sunglasses and white blazer.

“What the fuck?” Bam asks, as way of greeting. Knoxville looks up like he’s surprised, and grins with a finger scratching the back of his ear.

The sunglasses come off, and are folded into the V of his t-shirt.

“You really that surprised?” Johnny asks, cocking his head to the side.

Bam’s quiet for a half second, standing there with his pants sitting so low on his hips that they’re damned near falling off. Then he shakes his head.

“Not really,” He shrugs, letting Knoxville inside.

.

A new track record is set when Bam realizes that Johnny has been in his house for seven and a half minutes and they’ve already antagonized each other enough for this:

“ – fucks sake! I’m not some dumb ass kid!” Bam’s yelling, slamming cupboards and knocking shot glasses together like he’s the brainless blonde in some white trash power couple.

Knoxville’s got the bottle of scotch in his hand, and fuck, if he wasn’t such an alcoholic Bam’s sure he’d of busted the damn thing across the counter top by now.

“I never called you shit!” Johnny shouts, walking around the kitchen island. Bam turns around and crosses his arms over his chest, scowling. Johnny approaches real close, until they’re damned near nose to nose and Bam can smell the hotel scent soap in Johnny’s hair, dish detergent on his hands cause he never uses anything else. “You better get over your goddamn self real soon, else nobody’s gonna be left.”

Bam sneers. “You’re a real fuckin’ one to talk, aren’t you?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Slipping from between the counter and Johnny’s hips, Bam beelines to the scotch, shot glass already set and waiting in his hand.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bam repeats, keeping the island between them as he snaps the lid off the bottle and chucks it into the sink. “You show up out of dick all nowhere, after how fucking long, and think you can come in here and stick your cock out again –“

Knoxville snorts a laugh and leans back against the counter. “That’s real fuckin’ funny.”

“Oh yeah? Then what the fuck are you doing here, Moviestar?”

Johnny narrows his eyes. “Starfucker.”

“Fuck you,” Bam grumbles, lip curling as he downs the shot and waits for the burning to pass. He braces himself against the counter with two hands and stares across the wood and brick room at Knoxville. “Since when did you turn into an arrogant piece of shit bastard?”

The anger in Johnny’s face is evident by deep lines and old scars as he grits his teeth and tries real fuckin’ hard to not just club Bam right across the face.

“I fuckin’ forgot how you turn off and fucking on like some lamp switch,” Johnny says, real fuckin’ calm, as he crosses the room with the intent on dowsing his insides with a slick of fresh booze. “So I guess I’ve saved myself some time this turn round, huh? I got you figured out more than you think.”

Bam snatches the bottle away before Johnny can lay his hands on it, and pours himself another shot. He mutters, “You goddamn wish,” under his breath. 

“No, I do,” Johnny nods, finally getting hold of the bottle. He takes a swig right out of the mouth and doesn’t even cringe when he swallows. Bam downs his second shot just to keep up. “I got you figured out, now. It’s fine for me to fuck you on the side, but for you to fuck me?” Full blown accent, and Bam’s dick twitches at that, “Woo! Not happening, ain’t that right?”

Squeezing his eyes shut as he feels around for the alcohol, Bam says, “You have no fuckin’ idea, Knoxville.”

“Oh, I’m Knoxville now,” Johnny laughs, and it starts off slow but soon he’s bent over the counter, manic laughing like he just got a tazer straight to the nuts. Bam feels his stomach drop at the sight, feels real fuckin’ sad all of a sudden. “You want me to flip that switch for you, just once more?”

Bam tries to keep his voice level as he says, “I told you before, I’m done. It’s me and Vid now. You fuckin’ lost it.”

“Oh, so it has a name all of a sudden!” Johnny exclaims, eyebrows raising as he braces himself back over the counter. His legs are starting to go numb at the calves. “I thought he was still being referred to as anonymous?”

The pit in his stomach deepens: Bam fills it with another shot.

“You might as well fuckin’ leave, Knoxville,” He says, throat burning, voice tight as he cringes and waits for the booze to hit his liver. “Cause I’m done.”

Bam grabs the bottle and moves around the island counter with one hand on his head, pants so low Johnny can see scratch marks and pink spots. Those are fucking his, and he can’t believe Bam is this careless. He starts to head out of the kitchen.

“You woulda fucked me before!” Johnny shouts after him, just to keep his attention.

When the words sink in, Bam’s shoulders slump and he just hangs there for a moment, with Johnny staring at his back. Then he half turns around and says quiet, real fuckin’ quiet, so soft Johnny’s got to strain to hear it, “I woulda done a lot of things before, but you got to remember. He’s not fuckin’ Jeff, and I’m sure the fuck not you.”

“We’re more alike than you think,” Knoxville challenges, disregarding everything.

Bam takes a swig of booze straight from the bottle, fuck it.

“What the fuck do you want from me?” He asks, lowering the bottle again, cringing and Johnny knows he ain’t that good at holding straight liquor. 

Arms at his sides, Johnny watches Bam staring at him. He watches real fuckin’ hard, like if he doesn’t Bam’ll just up and disappear. And maybe he will.

“You fuckin’ _know_ what I want!” He exclaims, but he’s not mad. Exhausted, maybe, but not much else. Bam’s mouth drops open as he stares, lifts his arms and shrugs in a way that asks Johnny what the fuck he’s supposed to do. 

What the fuck is he supposed to do? 

“And why the fuck should I give you shit, then, huh?” Bam asks, taking a step forward to set the bottle of scotch down on the nearest counter. “You’ve got a nice track record of sticking your dick up my ass and fucking me over, so why should I give you _shit_?” All of a sudden he’s yelling, fucking screaming like it’s Johnny tearing his heart out.

They’re both breathing hard, an adrenaline rush without the gun control test or endless skate loops, and it makes their muscles twist up tight, makes them immobile without some kind of instant gratification as a cure.

“One fuckin’ time,” Johnny whispers, palms flat against the counter. He feels like he’s at a pew, forsaken for all his sins. “One last time and that’s fuckin’ it. I won’t come back.”

Bam crosses his arms over his chest and watches Johnny hard, tough eyes taking in tough skin, and he can’t do it. He just fucking…

“Can’t,” He whispers, shrugging, blinking fast. Johnny’s heart stops and twists and starts beating again, stops, remembers, stops.

Rubbing his forehead with one hand, Johnny holds himself up with the other and asks, sounding too desperate to be Mr. Hollywood, “Why the fuck not?”

“It’ll never end,” Bam explains, even if he doesn’t need to. “Promising ‘just one more time’ doesn’t mean shit to me.”

Johnny sighs and says, voice hard, “Fuck you.”

“Fuck me,” Bam repeats, one arm dropping. “What, you’re pissed you don’t get a farewell screw?”

All of a sudden Johnny’s twenty feet tall and pissed, throwing the sticky-empty shot glass into a line of cupboards as he yells, “What the fuck’s he got that I don’t?”

The shot glass explodes, popping like a firecracker. Bam cringes out of habit, even though he knows he’s not in range to get cut. But Johnny is.

“Why’s he so fucking special?” Johnny’s still yelling, stalking around the island to stand in front of Bam, possessive even though he’s got no justification to be. He grabs Bam’s shoulder when he tries to move back through the doorway, and gets a set of knuckles in the chest as a return.

It’s so fucking quick, and Johnny’s in such a pre-drunken haze that all he can count are thrown fists and the sound of bone impacting bone, fingers cracking and fabric burning skin. He socks Bam hard in the mouth, Bam lands a solid punch to the middle of his throat, and without thinking he grabs the back of Bam’s head, fingers slipping underneath layers of nervous-twisted hair.

Bam gets a good grip on the waistband of his pants with one hand, and uses the other to grab his shoulder blade tight, keeping them pressed real fuckin’ close together, so Johnny’s got no real choice other than to –

It’s not saying sorry, and it sure as fuck ain’t quiet apologizing for shit, but that feeling in the back of Johnny’s chest makes him push forward, makes him grip Bam real fucking hard and chew on his bottom lip until it’s swollen and red, until it matches the swelling on his cheekbone from a swiftly landed punch.

Bam lets go of Johnny’s pants and grabs the front of his shirt instead, pulls hard and gets a dick up against his hip in return. Johnny mumbles something into Bam’s mouth, but it doesn’t matter. Not yet.

.

They fuck up against the kitchen wall, with Johnny’s pants in a tangle around his feet, and Bam’s hooked around one ankle. Bam keeps his eyes pressed tight shut and knocks his head back against the wall so many times he’s sure it comes out concussed.

Johnny’s only half drunk on liquor, but he’s panting and swearing and jerking Bam off just perfect so it don’t even matter. 

“This ain’t over,” Johnny whispers in Bam’s ear, just as he comes.


	6. We Are the Sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny shifts his leg over, and watches Bam toss the portable phone off the side of the bed. 
> 
> “Sorry,” He says, apologizing for the head-bump.
> 
> Bam rolls over and looks at Knoxville with hazy eyes. “How many times did you and Tremaine fuck while we were together?”
> 
> “What?” Johnny asks, blindsided. The Japanese game show he was watching just to drown own the sound of muffled bitching suddenly becomes nothing more than background noise.
> 
> Blinking slow, twice, like it’s an answer by itself, Bam keeps his gaze level on Johnny’s face and shrugs careful like. “I want to know.”
> 
> “I didn’t count,” Johnny manages, his voice taking an uncomfortable detour as he goes pitchy for a half word.

_“One fuckin’ time,” Johnny whispers, palms flat against the counter. He feels like he’s at a pew, forsaken for all his sins. “One last time and that’s fuckin’ it. I won’t come back.”_

.

“Fucks sake,” Bam says, quiet and tired. “I don’t understand you.”

Beside him, Johnny shifts around until his arms are folded back under his head, propping the top half of his body up. 

“I never changed,” He replies, after a careful moment full of careful thoughts, and he isn’t lying anymore. “I fucked up, I know I did. But I never fuckin’ _changed_.”

Bam’s legs feel tense, he tries to relax them so they don’t fall asleep. Resting a hand on his bare abdomen, he turns his head enough so he can see Johnny’s profile in the muted atmosphere. 

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Bam asks, the sudden hitch in the volume of his voice more candid than anything he’s ever shot with a video recorder. He picks his head up off of the pillow, and knots his eyebrows in Johnny’s direction.

Johnny raises his head up so he can look back. The shift in position makes him talk funny.

“I can’t explain it,” He whispers, Southern Gentleman all of a sudden, and Bam wants to punch him square in the eye socket. “Believe me, I’ve fuckin’… tried figuring all this out for myself.”

Groaning, Bam presses the heels of his hands against his eyes until all he sees are black fireworks exploding in a sky he’s never even seen before.

“Fuck, this is so fucking… fucked up,” He grumbles to himself, keeping his eyes pinched closed real right, knotting his entire body up until all he is, is tension.

Johnny sucks his bottom lip into his mouth and nods, rolling back to look at the ceiling. Cause he knows.

He fucking knows.

“And the last fuckin’ thing I want for him is to be as muffed up as I am,” Bam reasons, and Johnny can’t believe the words come out of such an irrational person’s mouth.

Itching the back of his head out of habit, hair still damp at the ends with sex-sweat, Johnny turns again so he can see Bam.

“Tell him, then,” He shrugs, sounding almost as guilty as Bam. _Tell him it’s fuckin’ me that you want,_ Johnny’s biting back saying, _tell him he never fucking had you to start._ “If not, this is just gonna keep on and on…”

Bam scratches his fingernails over his stomach idly, thinking.

“What are you gonna do?” He finally asks, trying to sound like he doesn’t care for a second. Johnny sees right through the glance Bam throws, a movement meant to seem poised. It’s not.

Johnny catches Bam’s gaze anyways. “Depends on what your plans are.”

“Dunno what my fuckin’ plans are,” Bam grumbles, looking away sharp, leaving Johnny watching the side of his face. He blinks slow. “My fucking luck, he’ll tell me to fuck off cause I can’t keep my dick in my pants, you’ll find someone else, do the same. Then I’ll end up fucked, majorly fucked.”

Something in Johnny’s chest begins to triple time, thump and light up these electric powered signs behind his eyes that make funny noises and flash signs that tell him yes, fucking yeah, you finally got it. You’ve _got it._

“Fuck,” He whispers, mouth open. Bam looks over. “You’re afraid to me alone. Aren’t you? It don’t matter about me or him or fuckin’ Jeff.”

The muscles in Bam’s face tighten all at once, like he just slammed into hard pavement or flew out of a shopping cart at high speed. He pulls back. “Fuck off. What are you, a psychiatrist now?”

“Fuck, that’s what it is,” Johnny murmurs, stomach flip flopping like an animal who’s just learnt a new trick. “Goddamn.”

Bam tugs the blankets from his hips, all the way up to his chest.

“So fuckin’ what,” He finally whispers, after a long defeated silence.

Resting his face full in the pillow, Johnny watches Bam’s profile, and waits.

.

Bam phones Vid the next day, after an insomniac’s nightmare and a morning full of gloomy light pouring in through the bedroom windows. He dials the phone in the kitchen, leaves Johnny full in bed, knotted in-between the sheets and blankets.

They’re in the middle of a real good long distance match when Johnny shuffles in, bleary eyed and hung over, smelling like sex and tonic and sleep. Bam’s got his back turned to the kitchen door, alternating between yelling and coming as close as he gets to an apologetic tone of voice, accusing and denying at full clip. A whole fuckin’ life stuck full of opposites.

Johnny steals the leftover bottle of scotch from the counter, and disappears back down the hall.

“I fucked up,” Bam is beginning to compromise hard, his voice trailing after Johnny’s footsteps. “You fucked up – shut up for a goddamn minute!…”

.

Johnny’s got the television remote resting on his chest, and the bottle of scotch waiting within easy reach on the floor when Bam walks in, face fully drained and gaunt looking.

He sighs something Johnny can’t fully make out, exhausted from the war on the battlefront as he flops across the bed, knocking his temple hard into Johnny’s shin. He cringes, and reached a half-assed hand up to rub at the side of his head.

“Fuckin’ ow,” He grumbles.

Johnny shifts his leg over, and watches Bam toss the portable phone off the side of the bed. 

“Sorry,” He says, apologizing for the head-bump.

Bam rolls over and looks at Knoxville with hazy eyes. “How many times did you and Tremaine fuck while we were together?”

“What?” Johnny asks, blindsided. The Japanese game show he was watching just to drown own the sound of muffled bitching suddenly becomes nothing more than background noise.

Blinking slow, twice, like it’s an answer by itself, Bam keeps his gaze level on Johnny’s face and shrugs careful like. “I want to know.”

“I didn’t count,” Johnny manages, his voice taking an uncomfortable detour as he goes pitchy for a half word. 

Bam snorts and knots a hand in his hair, fingers tangled up to the knuckles.

“Fucking, ballpark it for me,” He shrugs. “An approximate number.”

Johnny looks back over to the TV screen. Two Asians are going head to head in a blow up pool full of hamburger sauce and green beans. Five years ago it might’ve been a stunt. 

“Three,” He finally admits, when one scores a point. “Four, maybe. Drunk…”

Nodding, Bam drops his gaze from Johnny’s face, and lets his head sink into the bed covers until his chin touches the mattress, and he can hear the humming of the electric heater through the box spring.

His head is suddenly a whirlwind of thoughts as he remembers those five hundred moments when he wondered, accusations flipping around through his mind. How could five hundred days inside of his mind only be three (four) in reality?

“When you fucked him,” He asks, voice muffled by the blankets. “Did you do it for the same reason?”

Johnny starts to reach for the booze bottle, his voice cracking hard because of the stretch in his chest and arm. “Don’t know what you mean.”

“You know exactly what I fuckin’ mean,” Bam fires back, turning his head over so he can see the whole of Johnny’s side, still just half dressed and submerged in old bed sheets. “Just fucking say it, I don’t give a half a fuck anymore.”

Taking a hard swig out of the bottle, Johnny flops back into the bed, and flicks his thumb over the peeling label of the Scotch.

“That whole… it wasn’t ever the same as you and me,” He finally admits, not once glancing up to look Bam in the face. “Don’t know why I did it, all I can do is promise not to do it again…”

Bam watches the side of Knoxville’s face, just waiting for an inconsistency in mood.

It never comes.

.

They stay like that, just like that, somehow harnessed in the safety of the blankets they fucked in the night before. Johnny memorizes all the channels on the TV, and then adds who broadcasts them. Bam falls asleep and wakes up, nods off and jerks back to reality, talks nonsense in his sleep and not much more when he’s fully awake.

Vid phones twice, Bam watches the caller ID and lets it ring itself to sleep both times. 

“Things could be different this time,” Johnny slurs, after he’s finished off the last of his booze and just Bam is laying there beside him. “I ain’t gonna fuck this up.” Bam remembers the time Johnny locked himself in a hotel hallway in India, and passed out inside of it for hours. His voice sounded the same then as it does now. “You ain’t gonna fuck this up, swear,” He pauses. Bam doesn’t say anything. Shifting, Johnny makes a move to shake Bam’s arm. “…You alive still?”

Bam flips over without thinking, and reaches down to slip the booze bottle right out of Johnny’s grip. He mostly ends up just holding onto Johnny’s fingers and wrist, letting the grip he’s got on tough skin win out over glass.

The empty scotch drops to the floor, hollow thump following. It leaves Bam halfway bent across Johnny’s chest, drunk and holding onto old snake bite scars.

“Last fuckin’ chance,” Bam says, quiet, looking Johnny right in the eyes, so fuckin’ steady that it makes them both uncomfortable. “You got it?”

Johnny nods his head, real carefully.

“Sure as fucking do.”


	7. You Burn First

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johnny takes his glasses off and starts across the mud slicked puddle between the drive, and where Bam is tearing up grass.
> 
> “You got a message while you were gone,” Bam says, sounding oddly poised as he takes another swig from the beer bottle, using the hand that isn’t holding the clutch.
> 
> Standing with his hips thrown out, all long and lanky like spider legs, Johnny shields his eyes from the sun and asks, “Oh yeah? From who?”
> 
> “Jeff,” Bam answers, real quick, ducking his head so Johnny can’t see his face. “It’s on the machine.”

_“Last fuckin’ chance,” Bam says, quiet, looking Johnny right in the eyes, so fuckin’ steady that it makes them both uncomfortable. “You got it?”_

.

Bam’s half laughing and half moaning, body pinned up against the bed headboard, with Johnny’s hands as tacks and hips as tape.

“Aw, fuck,” He pants, then laughs again, when he bed and wall come together to make a particularly abrasive noise. Johnny starts bucking real deep, then, fingers wrapped steady around the top of the bed frame for support. Something in position changes, Bam’s legs and stomach tighten, and the laughter dies in his throat. “Oh _fuck._ Fuck, _fuck_.”

Now Johnny’s giggling under his breath, winded because it’s hard to fuck and be funny at the same time. He hits something else, then, and he doesn’t even fuckin’ know how he got so good at this, cause in one second everything changes, and all of a sudden Bam’s twice as loud and trying to crawl up and over the bed headboard.

They come in a mess of shakes and twitching muscle, until Bam’s full spread out over the headboard, panting, trying to catch his breath as he wipes the come off his stomach with a corner of the sheet.

“Fucks sake. I just had a damn shower,” He grumbles like he’s being wickedly put out, legs flopping back down onto the bed when Johnny unceremoniously lets go of them. The whole mattress bounces, and shifts.

Johnny leans back into the pillows and folds his arms up behind his head, still watching Bam laying there with a heave in his chest. “Quit being a pussy,” He snickers. “It don’t taste bad.”

“You’re the come factory,” Bam frowns. “You fuckin’ eat it.”

Laughing, Johnny reaches over to the bedside table for a cigarette.

“So I’m a come factory now,” He repeats, tapping a smoke out of the pack, reaching for his lighter next. Bam starts laughing, can’t hold it in anymore as he wipes a hand over his forehead and up through his hair. “I see how it’s gonna be now, I fuckin’ see.”

Johnny’s pants start to vibrate across the floor, one pocket tugging the legs along.

“Your fucking phone,” Bam laughs, watching as Johnny tosses the lighter back onto the table, and hops out of bed but quick. He stoops down to pick up his pants, and digs through the pocket with one hand.

Bam rolls out of bed when Johnny flips the phone open and answers, “Hello?” as he walks out of the room, one ear plugged.

.

“Yo, Dunn!” Bam calls, letting the front door swing shut behind him.

He tosses his car keys on the Formica counter and takes his sunglasses off, side-stepping the unevenly legged table as he makes his way through the room.

“Dunn!” He shouts, peering into the bedroom on his way through. “Where the fuck are you!”

Dunn’s voice, muffled through the wall, replies: “In fucking here – would you shut up!”

“Dude,” Bam snickers, breaking into a jog on route past the bathroom. “What the fuck is up, where are you…”

In a corner of the small ass living room he rents for six-fifty a month, Dunn’s set himself up at a makeshift computer desk, with his trigger finger on the joystick, and most of his concentration funneled into the customized Doom WAD he installed the night before.

“Fuck,” He hisses, half of his body leaning off of the computer chair in effort to get his on screen character to move. He jerkily maneuvers the joystick, and twists his upper torso around. “Fuck!”

Bam throws himself into the couch on the other side of the room, letting his legs fall open as he loosens the scarf around his neck.

“You’ve been doing this all fuckin’ morning, haven’t you?” Bam asks, half amused but mostly disgusted. “Have you even fuckin’ eaten anything?”

Dunn lets out a wail of anger when GAME OVER flashes across the screen.

“Fuck you, dude!” He exclaims, spinning around on the seat. “You made me lose!”

Snickering, Bam flips the arms of his sunglasses open and closed, open and closed.. “The fuck I did, you were half dead when I came in.”

“ _Half,_ ” Dunn grumbles, running a hand through his hair. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

Bam peels himself out of the couch. “Got bored. Come on.”

.

They’re half drunk and sprawled across the couch in Bam’s living room when Johnny stumbles out of the bathroom, still shower damp with skin stuck clothes.

“Dunn,” He greets, half-smiling and making his way through to the kitchen with one hand twisted and stuck up the back of his t-shirt, scratching. Dunn nods and tips his beer at Johnny as a reply, then downs half the bottle in one go.

Bam’s got the remote for the CD player and takes advantage of switching the track mid song and laughing about it, cause he knows it’s one more thing Dunn can’t fucking stand.

“Would you give me that fucking thing,” Dunn bitches, on schedule as usual, reaching across the couch to try and snag the remote out of Bam’s grip. Bam laughs and jumps back, holding the remote up over his head and spilling beer all down the front of his shirt in the process.

Johnny comes in after another song change, with a coffee in one hand and his pack of smokes in the other. He sits himself down real comfortably in the shabby ass armchair across from the couch.

“Wanna pass me one of them?” He asks, nodding to the case of beers on the floor, as he sets his coffee down on the table, half spilling it all over his fingers. He shakes his hand off, but doesn’t bother cringing at the pinching heat. 

Dunn’s on beer duty, so he reaches into the case and pulls another out. They’ve only got three bottles left.

“My fuckin’ knee’s acting up again,” Knoxville says, mostly for the sake of conversation, because it hasn’t been the same between him and Dunn since… well, it’s been a damn long time. 

Feet up on the table, Bam snaps the lid off another beer and makes a face.

“Show Dunn,” Bam says, the coffee table shifting under the pressure of his feet. Johnny’s coffee spills over a little more as Bam half turns to tell Ryan, “It’s so fuckin’ nasty.”

Johnny pulls his pant leg up one handed. “It ain’t that bad.”

“You’re just used to it!” Bam exclaims, launching forward in his seat to point at the huge knob grown on Knoxville’s knee. Too many years of too many stunts, he guesses. “It’s a fucking dual kneecap!”

Dunn laughs, kind of, and sips at his beer.

“Yeah,” He shrugs, watching Johnny fix his pants back. “It’s pretty foul.”

.

Knoxville leaves an hour and a half later, says he’s got to get to a meeting even though he’s in a half drunken haze. He goes with a beer in one hand and his beat up bomber jacket in the other, sunglasses maybe-broken already in one of his pockets.

There’s an uncomfortable, almost lucid silence on the couch, that has Bam pushing buttons on the player remote and Dunn peeling the label off his beer bottle.

“You ever wonder?” Ryan asks, listening to the car engine start in the drive out front.

Bam’s more interested in the CD player remote. “About what?”

“Knoxville.”

Suddenly Bam’s laced with nitrous as he snaps, “I’m not some fucking doting housewife.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Dunn replies, logically. 

Bam starts to get up off of the couch, the intent of grabbing another case of beer clear in his mind.

“How’s about,” He starts, going for dramatics as he throws on his jacket for the quick liquor store run. “You mind your own fucking business.”

.

By the time Bam returns, Dunn’s gathered his shit, and left.

.

Johnny lights a smoke somewhere between the Universal offices and his parking space, and stands outside in the L.A. sun for a half beat, inhaling and soaking sun. Someone passes by and smirks at him in that way that says they know exactly who he is, so he offers a half assed head tip in return.

The drive back is aggravating, even with the cigarette in his hand, because Los Angeles drivers are the worst, even for him. He goes through a half pack in the twenty minutes it takes him to leave the studio and make his way back to the Palisades.

.

Bam’s outside, sitting on an RTV with a beer in his hand when Johnny pulls up.

“Dunn leave?” He asks, pulling himself up and out of the car before he reaches back in to grab the short stack of scripts he picked up. 

He kicks the car door shut with his foot and turns around.

“Like a bitch when I went to get more beer,” He explains, kick starting the RTV, hovering over it and pumping his foot.

Johnny takes his glasses off and starts across the mud slicked puddle between the drive, and where Bam is tearing up grass.

“You got a message while you were gone,” Bam says, sounding oddly poised as he takes another swig from the beer bottle, using the hand that isn’t holding the clutch.

Standing with his hips thrown out, all long and lanky like spider legs, Johnny shields his eyes from the sun and asks, “Oh yeah? From who?”

“Jeff,” Bam answers, real quick, ducking his head so Johnny can’t see his face. “It’s on the machine.”

.

_“PJ. Give me a call. I’ve still got the same number.”_

_Click._


End file.
